Referee should have thrown towel back and ordered fighters to fight

That was an odd stoppage in the sense that the ref had no clue Ingles was on the apron waving the towel for a good 7-10 seconds before Ingles threw the towel in.

Granted, he was to the side of the ref but I thought the ref should've been able to see him from the corner of his eye/peripherally.

 

Kell wasn't firing back though.

He bust his eye socket, had stopped fighting back, was pinned against the ropes against boxing most dangerous puncher who was stepping the pressure up and your best shots have bounced off his head unfazed.

The other options were let the inevitable come or let the referee step in. He may have made it to the end of the round but round 6 was probably gonna much the same, why put your fighter through that? Why let him take another minute of a solid beating?

Brook took some hard shots that night, shots that have made other fights fall. He deserves that warrior status, he also deserves it for going toe to toe with Golovkin at times.

 

Yeah, I thought the same thing. It looked to me at first like the ref was just ignoring Ingle intentionally and was about to throw the towel back out when he reached down to pick it up. (like him waiving "no I'm not stopping it" instead of him waiving "the fight is over")

Then at the first replay from the alternate angle where you could see Ingle carrying on waiving the towel it looked to me like the ref, like you said, should have been able to see him from the corner of his eye but was intentioanlly ignoring Ingle for 7-10 seconds.

This all was quite bizarre, but now we know (which we didn't know at the time) that Ingle had completely lost his voice, so possibly the reason why Ingle wasn't able to get the ref's attention was because the ref didn't hear him "screaming" on the ring apron because he literally had no voice.

Surely if Ingle hadn't lost his voice the referee would have noticied him on the apron sooner becuase he would have heard him yelling. I don't think anyone can deny that it was a very odd stoppage, with a lot of different factors working to make it so.

 

There was a lot of talk about daring to be great pre-fight, you don't become great by throwing in the towel. Many fighter have fought on with worse. Admittedly to fight on would have risked Kells eye but then again greatness isn't meant to come easy. To dare means to take those risks.

Regardless big credit to Kell.

 

He hadn't stopped fighting back completely, he was under pressure, but he seemed to still be intelligently defending himself. He was along the ropes sort of trying to roll with the punches. In the 5th round, Kell was essentially doing what Ali did vs Foreman from round 2 on in the Rumble in the Jungle. Just covering up, rolling with punches, etc. For all we knew Kell was fine and was just trying to get Golovkin to throw himself out. Kell even at one point in the 5th grabbed the rope and motioned to Golovkin that his punches had no effect on him, egging Golovkin on to keep throwing.

It was truly bizarre, because earlier in the fight he was pawing at his eye. It's like on one hand Kell was trying to act like he wasn't hurt by Golovkin's punches, yet at the same time he was complaining that his eye socket was broken. It's like Golovkin's punches weren't enough to put him down, but at the same time they were apparantly enough to cause his eye serious damage. So as a fan it's hard to judge Kell's chin, becuase on one hand his chin held up, on the other hand his chin shattered early in the fight. That's what I was getting at yesterday discussing the difference between a glass chin and a good / bad chin. This fight surely highlighted that difference.

If you are going to go toe to toe with Golovkin, then surely the expectation is for somebody to hit the canvas. This fight was stopped without either guy officially hitting the canvas. Certainly the way Brook fought at times was like a warrior, standing there trading with him toe to toe and what not, but at the same time it probably wasn't the smartest gameplan in retrospect. Then again, maybe it was.

One thing's for sure, this fight left us with more questions than we got answers. I'll admit that there were some aspects of Kell's performance that fell into the warrior catagory, and other aspects of the fight that fell into the not-a-warrior category. I like Kell Brook as a fighter, and I was gutted for him with the injury and on how it was stopped. Basically, I'm not sure if he's a warrior because of how odd the stoppage was, and how unclear the severity of the injury was. But he certainly fought valiantly. I guess I'm just confused on what to make of this fight.

 

Yeah I think I feel the same way. I think a lot of boxing fans are confused as which side to firmly attach themselves to. I agree that you don't become great, or call yourself a warrior, by throwing in the towel. Throwing in the towel is the opposite of being a warrior and fighting through pain, especially without ever even hitting the canvas once. (even if it was the corner that threw in the towel, and the not the fighter himself .. HOW WOULD A FIGHTER THROW IN THE TOWEL ON HIMSELF ANYWAY, that argument makes no sense, that's impossible lol)

On the other hand, credit to Kell for how he fought at times, and "possibly" fighting through the pain. I think the problem is we didn't see a huge cut or a massive swelling on his eye to leave no doubt that he was experiening a serious injury. We have to simply believe Kell at his word that he was suffering a serious injury. What makes this hard is that anyone can SAY that their eye hurts during a fight, ya know, and we can't just start calliing people warriors without seeing a big punch land, or a bad cut, or something. I doubt Kell was faking it, but I think you get what I'm saying.

 

The corner stopped the fight so that Kell Brook did not die. Seriously if he had gone 12 rounds he may not have exited the ring alive.

 

I think part of the problem was that Brooks' chin was holding up well. He took 75 power punches from GGG, many of them flush, and was only only wobbled once early in the 1st round. He would have continued to take a beating in the coming rounds. For me if it wasn't for the eye, i would have said yeah keep going and take that beating until ends.

Unfortunately the broken eye socket changes everything. There's no point in likely ending your career to prove you are a warrior in a fight you're pretty much guaranteed to lose. Essentially what some are saying is 'So what?, let him lose his eye and end his career. At least he would have proven his warrior status.'

All well and good for us keyboard warriors, sitting at home with our bag of chips enjoying the entertainment. But for the fighters themselves, they think of both entertainment for the fans AND for their futures. Brook gave us an action packed 5 rounds of boxing. He didn't fold like so many other GGG opponents. He had many, many opportunities to go down or take a knee.

All credit to him i say.

 

I'm glad they stopped the fight. That was too brutal, for both me, but especially Brook who was really getting beat up in there. GGG was very accurate with his shots in the final round and Brook was taking a tremendous amount of punishment. Honestly, I was thinking that Brook was on PEDs due to the amount of punishment he was absorbing, but I'll just assume that he's clean.

It was a great effort by Brook and certainly revealed some flaws in GGG, but I'm happy the fight was stopped. Now, finding out that Brook had a broken orbital bone, I know the right call was made. Wasn't sure what Hopkins was talking about in there.